The whispering Hollows

[Res]

"Hueco Mundo.....How long has it been?" A voice familiar, yet unheard for many a year spoke into the dying winds of a never blossoming white desert. Maybe these dying winds would bear fruit for one time in their short lived lives and carry a message across the plains that have been walked by many, yet that have no footprints embedded in its soft sand. Unchanged was the darkened sky that carried not one star, not one shimmer in its realm. Well, besides the ever present pale crescent one could call the moon, its appearance feeling almost threatening, a single body above a plain of none existence. Perhaps though, a glimmer of hope for those unfortunate enough to have but a shimmer of life in them. One last piece of hope to hang on to, before their bodies may become one with the cold dunes that surround them. A guide above an ocean of sand....when the people they call man wrote their stories about travellers chasing the guiding star...one could doubt that they ment this one. This body in the void would surely guide you to nothing more than the sand already beneath your feet...its guidance is full of deceit, anger, pain, hopelessness....you name it. Combined with this occasional light breeze that threatened to suffocate anyone willing to inhale its dying breeze. It's scent....none existent...yet foul and rotten..full of death...emptiness...made for a world full of those that feel exactly the same inside...void.

It was this world that she was tossed into...such a long time ago. A world that she had not chosen, but was presented to her like being tossed into a shark infested pool during a feeding frenzy. It was this world that she had learned to live in..learned to fight in. To say that she had conquered it would be false...there is no conquering the void...as you cannot be the conqueror of nothing. It is a world that she had shared...that she had even been granted to exit...but in a way, she was, she is, and she will always be its messenger. No matter where she goes, no matter who she meets, her fate, that she shares with those that carry her burden, is to deliver the message of Hueco Mundo, wherever she may go. So it almost seemed rather ironic that she had once more 'returned' to Hueco Mundo...allthough never leaving it...she had returned to what was once the region she had first walked through. Las Noches seemed oh so close, a place that had been a makeshift home for her once. A home which she could decorate herself...where her very being was shown through her expressions and not by the thing she had become.

The sand seemed yet unchanged beneath her feet, as unchanged as it ever was in this region...yet a difference still than in her travels. Her knees moving against the white fabric of the robe that she wore, reaching from her shoulders, down to her feet, barely hovering over the ground beneath. Each step shifted sand to the side, each step allowing her to climb higher on a dune that would hopefully allow her a better overview of this forgotten land. A light breeze caught her long, white sash that she wore around her waist, causing one line of the fabric to flutter back behind her. This dry breeze could not touch her skin, as hard is it may try, for above her neck sat a robed head cover, wrapped around her face and head, allowing only her yellow eyes to shimmer through its visage. A different appearance than that of when she left this region, for sure, but while this desert seemed to stand still in time, she chose not to. Minor, surely, adaptive, yes, but change nonetheless. It was almost done...one peek..one visual certainty of an already known picture...yet even after all this time..she always expected the unexpected.

Finally, the last few steps had gone by and her feet planted themselves firmly in the sands ontop of the dune, overlooking a large distance of the forsaken land. The female rose her head in a light degree, her nostrils taking in the known air...scent...of this familiar place. Filling her lungs with the vast nothingness that this place had to offer, a nothingsness she had come to know. The wind of exhaled air passed her lips, through the tunic covering her mouth, back out into the void of the desert. It was not calming, nore alarming, nore was it different than the breaths she had taken before....but neither was the view of the emptiness presented to her. And yet....it seemed so familiar...perhaps her mind playing tricks on her even after all this time? After all, how could the void look and seem familiar? Everything was the same..and yet nothing alike...though perhaps that was simply a shimmer of what insanity she could have reached at one point. However as void as this ocean of sand might be...life still blossomed...even if not fully visible. She could feel the Reiatsu of many a Hollow wandering this wasteland...fighting for nothing...becoming one with the void. From the smallest to the largest, they all shared a common enemy...themselves and all those around them...no one was safe.

A flimmer of Las Noches was even within reach, not visibly but mentally she could feel its inhabitants move inside the pale fortress. Its walls granting false safety to those within...yet walls that have stood since a time far before hers. It did, however, remind her of a certain individual. One that she parted ways with so long ago, one that had stood at her side from the beginning, only to find his own way within this desert, as did she. She wondered if he too had left this region of Hueco Mundo and wandered far into the distance to find...whatever it is that wanted to be found. Or perhaps he had stayed here...built up an Empire...watched it fall perhaps? Everything is an uncertainty in life....even in death the uncertainties don't stop, that much is for sure. But perhaps, if there is hope, their paths will cross once more in the future...perhaps they would have more stories to tell eachother...what an interesting thing that would be.

[Res]

She shook the thought of Las Noches off of her mind, even though she had seemed to rest on it for so long. The yellow eyes that peered through the small slit in her head cover shifted across the white dunes of the vast desert in front of her. The empty void once more capturing her attention, though this time, for not more than a moment. Her right foot raised from the white sand, several strains of sand falling down from its sole to become one with the ground once more, while Minako moved on down the pale dune, further into the forsaken desert.

Dune after dune, pit after pit, her travel worthy of a timelapse, ever unchanging, the desert seemed oh so dead this time around. Her first steps through this land had been filled with grief and horror, despair and sadness...though that was not the only thing different from then to now. While she felt none of the implied emotions at the current moment, there was something different...something missing. She had not traveled as a single soul throughout this desert before, but instead was always accompanied by one or more individuals. While she had made quite the few contacts in this barren land, there was one that stood out, one that had walked along side her for much longer than the others...one that had shared more with her than the others...one that could not be different...and yet they had shared such a similar fate. Yet even so, they had departed from one another a long...long time ago..and the pale female was unsure of the whereabouts...and the state..of this individual. But perhaps, maybe, just maybe, she could change that and for maybe a short while, share another moment with them. But for that to happen, the girl would haveto go to a place that....honestly, she had almost forgotten about. She wasn't too sure that this place would work...they had been there but once....and it was the first act of violence the two of them had experienced...yet it was also the first change...transformation if you will...that they experienced together there. Alas the place she had to find was nothing more than a field of sand...yet it held enough spiritual energy that she was sure to find it...for even with the souls of the deceased gone, a battlefield always lingers more energy than other places.

Perhaps considering that Hueco Mundo itself was a battlefield, it may be a hard task to find this place...but, the place was different. All those hollows....those Menos Grande...they had been lured there for a reason. This place was of higher spiritual energy than other places within Hueco Mundo and that was going to help her find it.
Indeed, thanks to Minakos capabilities of feeling Reiatsu and spiritual energy, honed by training done over the years, it was simple to distinguish between places of lower and higher spiritual energy...attracting all those forsaken hollows...to fight in an endless fight for grief. But it was their struggle that would lead her to it...to the place that started their travels...she could feel it pulsing within her...no place was alike the other...and this one stood out...for their own spiritual energy was mixed with it. The dunes passed, the crimson moon stood high in the sky, the calling grew closer...and closer...until..

One last sand dune...that the cloaked individual stepped ontop....revealed the battlefield that she had searched for. An empty pit, a crater of hardened white sand and rock, sprawling across the distance of several miles. Feint...yet silently there...the quiet cries, the Reiatsu of those that had fallen there, those that had evolved...it echoed throughout this battlefield. IT was a place of great burden, of great violence...of great memory. Minako wasted not a second and within but a few steps, her feet had touched the hardened floor of this field. With each step that she took next, she felt the surge of energy sprawl throughout her body, clinging onto her like the blood magic of this realm....That was perhaps it...this may be one of the places that this dimension had created to test its nature....its oh so violent nature. To sieve out the weak and let only the strong remain, it was a testing ground and those that failed the test were forever forsaken.
None the less, Minako was one of the individuals who had passed its test long ago and yet she found herself in the middle of the battlefield once more. But this place, as wicked as it was, it was perfect. It was the place of their first test, the place of their first evolution, their first fight...and slaughter. If anything, it was the place he would feel more attracted to...a place of violence...fitting for his name.

"I don't know if you're out there.......I don't know if you're still alive...." The words came out as a whisper to herself, yet a seeming echo throughout this empty warzone. The bits and pieces of rock and sand that were laying about did not do good at dampening movement or words...and they were probably the only thing living that this place had heard for a long time. "But......if you are......." It seemed as if the words left her lips almost quaking, trembling....all while Minako's right hand slowly shifted out from beneath the white robe, her arm raising up straight into the air, causing the fabric of her robe to slightly nudge down to her wrist, exposing her pale hand to the empty air of Hueco Mundo. Her hand was almost clenched into a fist, except for her thumb and index finger. The two fingers were extended out, as if doing a finger pistol gesture straight up into the sky. It was then that a small, yellow orb formed at the tip of Minakos index finger. The ball grew no larger than the size of a golf ball, glowing and shimmering with its bright yellow light, as if a small sun had appeared in the land of the Hollows. Her eyes shifting up into the sky with her chin tilting back to stare up into the empty void, and chiseled crescent moon. The females lips parted once more, words leaving her mouth in a more familiar, slowly growing unshaken tone: "Then....allow this to be a signal for you........Reaper of Hueco Mundo......." Her words grew faint in the end, with the last ones crawling out in a loud whispering tone. The ball of concentrated energy seemed to pulse and twist, as if cast by a nervous source of power. Yet to truly call upon an individual...she would haveto release enough energy to drown out the white desert around her...for many miles to come.....and it was at this moment that she decided to, if only for a brief moment, show her power...the power...of an Ex-Espada. "Cero......Oscuras" The words had barely left her lips, before the inside of the yellow ball had turned pitch black, sparking and pulsing with energy. It was only moments later, before said energy released itself from her finger, errupting into a large, black and yellow cone shape, shooting up into the sky within but a second. The battlefield around her lit up in its bright yellow light, smoking from the sheer energy errupting from the females finger. Sand and rocks were blasted back and into the air by its force, clearing the field around her from all particles of loose debris.
The blast lasted for around 20 seconds, enough time to send out massive waves of Reiatsu across the desert and if her presence wasn't known yet...anyone around would surely know of it now...yet that was the point. But now, the waiting game began, as Minakos hand dropped back down to her side, covered up by her robe. If anything, the Reiatsu would scare off any Hollows with a little bit of sense...even though it would possibly attract stronger ones....yet, that really wasn't an issue for her.

 

OOC: Voice color code: #33ccff

 

[Draka]

What is the worst one can do.. Murder, which kills the heart until becomes it becomes as void as in Hollows. Torture, which makes a prisoner of the mind, to the pain of the flesh, robbing it's faint amount of choice. Slavery, which diminishes others by senseless standards and inflates oneself into abandoning worldly values in favor of one's own. Vengeance, which punishes with blindness to consequences, bringing soothing to the self and suffering to those familiar with the avenger and culprit both... Some humans once philosophized that the depths of hell were reserved for traitors, those who abandon the reliance placed on them by another. Perhaps because, the fear of being betrayed, the fear of unseen threats that experience, despite their invisibility, still tells us is there.. That fear, is rooted in truths of everyday life, and so is the knowledge of how fragile trust is to these unseen threats of slights, large and small, that might unravel that fear.

Long ago.. So very long ago now, there lived a boy that was made a man by the tragedy of senseless misfortune. He trusted no-one and never opened his heart, fearing that loss of control over what trust he had given to another person, would lead him to suffer. That unreal flames of fear for doing anything, after being betrayed, would burn him away and make naught more of him, but a husk... But, men and ideals, do not mix well with one another. And like myths of old, where does running from fate lead back too that fate, as though by the work of a god's will to keep him imprisoned.. And indeed, he burnt up in an inner fire of the soul - an azure blaze that took away half the heart - all because he forgot that it is not people that betray others. Rather, it is circumstances, that changes what one trusts away from what it use to be.

Alas, a fruitless tale, as were any that served a purpose, rather than serving the story's subject. The curse of fabrication. The lifelessness of a focused mind, trying to mimic something chaotic. And failing. Even the subject coming to see the smooth lines of design... Beckoning the cruel question. If tragedy had made a monster, one guilty of many more sins than be the monster worth forgiveness, and were that monster's tragedy a design. Does this meaning something new?.. A glimmer of hope, the possibility for changing by breaking the design, and the fear that such would merely be a wasted effort.

Even then.. Either the past is a lie, leaving a shell out of the monster, or, the past is as true as before and a monster is absolute, regardless of choice. A thought like that, exists in a place. A place without walls, but merely dense rock spanning nearly forever, and no doors for lack of one needing to be designed. In a place where need light not be, for there being no pairings of living things to see one-another, and no changes to make an endless passage of time bearable.. In such a place sits one the like of which has nothing to offer, nothing to gift and no sense of hope.. Only two kinds of beings exist merely to be in such a place. Those blissful in sleep, and those waiting.

 

Somewhere, beneath the desert sand, rested a cave. One which walls was made of a black, crystal matter alike that of the black quartz pillars, found upon the surface of the desert. It's floor cracked open in numerous locations in which blue crystals rose, their forms radiating the faintest flicker, alike ever burning blue flames. Near an enormous arc, formed of black quartz and covered in carvings of symbols, sat a Hollow upon the ground with one set of clawed fingers clutching a long staff, standing like a pole and with a curved blade for a flag.

Through miles upon miles of stone, a shock reverberated onward, struggling. It's force caused nearly only a grain of dust to shift upon the black wall and fall, while the Reiatsu did not even manage that cut through the odd material that guarded this tomb.. And yet, did something else carry through, stirring the Hollow to open it's eyes amidst the utter darkness.

 

The faint glow of his eyes dimmed as they narrowed with his focusing, silent minutes passing as the Hollow's mind properly woke from the long slumber. The cold blaze of the eclipsed blue suns, that were his eyes, starred into the distance without change as began life to slowly grasp the statue-like figure upon the ground. His breath seeped out between the pale white teeth of his mask, causing tussles of long black hair hanging down over his mask to slightly sway forward. A low snap reverberated through the room as he cracked his neck, brushing a horn over the shriveled gray flesh of his chest. His jaw dropped slightly, instinctual trying to speak, yet his muscles seemed still sore and his throat dried in the cold air, only hissing out a low groan.
"I see.." his voice sounded within his mind, his eyes slightly widening as his mind began to connect with the flesh of his form. "How long- No.. Pointless.." His thoughts wandered as flooded his memories too him, soon followed by a sense of his last few thoughts before surrendering himself to slumbering within this place, the home he'd built so very long ago, bare the condensed and rich experience to follow his Arrancarization. Still, it calmed him to waken here, with the familiar site to remind him of the parts of his core never to change.

His eyes slowly shifted across the inky sclera of his eye, the black pupil compressing as his returning senses looking off into an impossibly long distance. Towards the feeling that had stirred him from his wait.. Even in this place, were does the cavern rock kill any shock and the strange stone practically block Reiatsu, could some very few things still reach him. Despite the passage of time, his abilities had clearly not dulled, the small fragment of himself having survived the passage of time. "Which.." his voice spoke said aloud, rough like the grating walls of his place. Which indeed. His feeling of intention and this energy.. There was little mistaking her for anyone else. However long since he'd last felt this presence, his instincts wouldn't allow him to forget that presence which he had felt practically every day for years on end. A slow sigh left him at the thought, knowing too well that of all people, his expectations never seemed to meet with her kind of thinking. If he could be said to have been gifted a mind for making sense of things, than surely she'd been gifted one immune to being made sense of.
His tall frame rose from the floor with the echo of clacking hooves, his knee's long black mane casting off the layer of dust upon it. The base of the staff-like handle in his grasp screeched across the floor as he took a step into the darkness, his eye lifting to look up with thoughts still flowing about his mind, despite his better judgment. It were for the best to merely ask himself. Her tune, were perhaps the only of which he didn't mind occasionally being lead by, despite his hatred for surrendering to such things.

 

----------------------

 

A spear of sand struck through into the sky upon the desert floor, falling apart into a pale gray hail as dropping around the Hollow. His pupil moved to the edge of his eye, looking down through the rift in the rock besides his feet and into the cavern, as moonlight gave some small amount of detail to the massive space hidden beneath the sands. Sliding back over the black sclera, they set themselves on the distance ahead, as did he, stepping across the desert floor with naught but the further outskirts of Hueco Mundo around him, silent and nearly empty. Slowly, the rock he'd broken began to darken to a pitch black and creep together into a mass over the small opening. As faded the texture soon again, the stone seemed as though never broken..
She'd have to wait a little while. Take some time to get her thoughts straight about this odd summons. All the while, his mind would gradually recover through the long trek across the endless desert.. They'd might even have some shared sense of what to expect from one another at the end of that. The thought was barely formed, but a long sigh left him and he shook his head slightly, thinking upon his error. Truly his mind weren't yet woken, if thoughts like that were the first to surface to his mind. The little sparks of thoughtless feelings, like annoyance or distressing tension, that would on occasion try to pull the mind away from deeper things..

 

----------------------

 

It had been some several hours or so, before his mind adjusted to notice. His eyes ran down his shape, the pale flesh of a form from which had come the odd title that had some thought him somehow more fitting than that from which it likely originated, the Shinigami. True, it were not one she were accustomed to. It had dawned on him a few times now, minutes of passage giving rise to distractions as old thoughts came to the surface of his mind, causing him to dismiss the small matter until now.. With a thought, the black of his eyes spread over his mask, creeping onto his skin as in it's wake was left a featureless dark figure with barely a defining ridge to show. The black mane crawled back along itself, shortening until did it barely reach past the shoulders of the humanoid figure still changing as continued it on it's march. Black tatters clinging too him grew into long open robes and sleeves, splitting apart into layers whilst grayish lining formed at the edges as it tore into the shape of a dark uniform. A small bluish gem formed upon the end of the sheathed black blade that had been the man-sized scythe he carried, just in time for details to finish their manifestation upon the clothing of the figure, followed swiftly by the retreating blackness across form giving view of pale-white skin, contrasted by facial hair and as inky black as the black pools he now possessed for eyes.

Spoiler

 

With the passing thought resolved, his mind started to quiet a bit. The desert had little in the way of changes that invited new ideas, say for the minds that would create from nothing, rather than make out of something. His mind saw merely the 'who' of whom he was finally approaching now, wondering perhaps one small thing about the odd meeting. Hours upon hours passed, likely more than he were aware, she'd have waited while he had approached with his Reiatsu (as ever) barely the level of a human. Set to wait amidst these outskirts and it's wandering Hollow, would she have lost patience with the waiting by this time or had perhaps that trait improved in her..

His eyes climbed out of their unfocused stare towards the difference, as had the shape of some pit in the sand started to become apparent.

[Res]

With the blast of her cero subsiding, turning ever thinner until it finally disappeared into nothing, allowing the ever dark coloring of Hueco Mundo to return to normality, Minako's arm dropped back down to her side ever so slowly, causing the long fabric of her white sleeves to fall over her hands once more, covering them completely. There she now stood, cloaked in her white robe from head to toe, with the looming presence of her reiatsu slowly diminishing down to nothing more than the spiritual level of an average human. Her eyelids slowly fell down over her penetrating yellow eyes, dimming the light with each inch they covered, until finally sealing off her eyesight to the pale world around her. If there is one thing that Hueco Mundo was good at, it was making someone feel much like the creatures that reside inside this realm, Hollow. No breeze, no gust of air, no sound, nothing but emptiness sorrounded each vessel within this realm, no matter its size or shape. Although invisible from the outside, as her long robe did its job of hiding seemingly small movements within itself, Minako's chest slowly inflated itself with the empty air that the desert had to offer, her ribs expanding around her filling lungs, hearing small cracks and pops throughout her ribcage and spine. Truly the need to surpress oneself within this realm was rather bothersome, she could feel each and every string of muscle quake beneath her skin, aching for release. Every passing second was a struggle to not release more than a sliver of her spiritual energy throughout her body, a feeling which she had not experienced in so long. Surpressing and releasing her reiatsu was not an issue, that she had learned and become better at over the years, yet to lower ones spritual energy to such a low amount for such a period of time, it was a pain indeed. Even with the seal given to her, allowing most of her Reiryoku to be cut off, her surpression felt as if a giants foot was pressing down onto her torso.
 

Never the less, it was a sacrifice that she chose to make, at least for a little while, in order to find this certain individual. While it was unsure if her small burst of energy reached out far enough for him to feel and follow it, she had to at least wait for a little while. To that, she was unsure of the condition of the individual, was he even still alive? Did he perhaps move on, much like she did? Either way, it was too early to make assumptions, she would haveto wait and see for now.
Finally with her mind slowly clearing, Minako's lips parted slightly, allowing the pent up air to pass out between her lips. At the pace of which they had closed, her eyes opened once more, letting her glaring yellow eyes gaze upon the wasteland yet again. The girl would slowly turn her head from left to right, as if scanning the battlefield for something, yet not finding whatever it was. Perhaps she would be able to pass the time with some memories, brought back to life in a small, but seemingly living fashion, that may make things move along.
But where to start? There were so many memories to choose from, yet they all seemed so very distant, so old....truly she had almost forgotten how many years it had been. There were definite cracks and pieces missing within these memories, like an ancient broken wall, showing off its story, yet time had left its cracks upon it.

Minako's head eventually raised up from her thoughts and it seemed as though the battlefield around her started returning to live. But this life...it was different...it was fake....the particles of sand and rock sorrounding and within the battlefield all semed to turn to life, in unison they lifted up off of the ground beneath, almost as if lifted up by a sudden gust of air. All around Minako the sand and rock began to form together, seemingly recreating an age old battle that had taken place long ago. Hollows were shaped within the battlefield, in all shapes and sizes, fighting against one another in a struggle for an empty hunger. Though silent was this battle, Minako could hear their voices within her head, while she traveled across the battlefield, gazing upon the different forms doing battle. It seemed as though endless, if one fell, another took its place, creating the illusion of constant blood flow across the pale white sand. However, the battle was stopped in a sudden motion of black matter, forming together in a mass and towering into the sky. Two Menos Grande formed within this battlefield, ending its bloody match once and for all. Minako stepped forward, gazing up upon the two creatures, while they slowly crumbled back into sand and rock, dropping down onto the floor beneath.

The dust did not settle for long however, as it rather quickly reshaped itself, raising up the masts of a large, pale ship, seemingly rising from the ground below. The ship glided across the rocky surface of the ground, carried and pushed on by seemingly nothing. Upon its pale deck, a crew tumbled about, scrubbing off the floor, climbing its ropes and masts, with one particular character standing out. It was a rather tall, yet broad fellow, a large hat atop his head and a wild, long beard around his neck, down to his chest. The creature walked across the deck, as if strutting, with his red coat standing out amongst the white background.
The ship sailed past Minako at a reasonable pace, blowing across a few hundred meters on the battlefield, before returning crackling and crumbles to pieces once more.
But there was one more thing that seemed to form out of the sand, this time causing the rubble to float and levitate above the ground. The sand and rocks formed an island of sorts, floating in the air as if suspended by a thread.
An interesting location this was, Minako thought, stepping closer to the island, which was of course in a much smaller scale than what it used to be. She could make out a few creatures flying about the island, hollows, yet with wings...harpies of sort. They seemingly roamed the island freely, landing and moving within the many cave-like entrances that the place provided. The inside of the island was not visible, but it was known, of course, to certain individuals.

Alas, her wait had seemingly paid off. Minako's creations once more crumbled and turned to dust, scattering across the battlefield and turning into nothing but sand beneath her feet once more. Yet, this did not matter much, as something different was approaching. While her little spark of energy had surprisngly not gained the attention of the sorrounding Hollows, it had however...effected something, or someone. The spiritual energy levels were low....very low....too low to be that of a hollows. Though since only hollows roamed this plain, there could only be one cause for this low amount of spiritual energy....surpression. But surprisingly it didn't take much of figuring out on who was coming...his spiritual energy, as low as it may have been, already told his tale. She could feel it creeping closer and closer to her...not in view yet...there were miles between them...yet she could feel him approaching from behind her...this would get interesting.

 

 

 

[Draka]

The black figure's slow walk over the sands began to slow a little as coming atop a small dune, shifting his perception enough to make out the change in the terrain still some distance ahead of him. A deep pit in the sand, akin to the aftermath of some great explosion that's become a mark upon the land, somehow never filled by the shifting sands of Hueco Mundo. At least, such might be the mind of a ordinary human, raised in times familiar with images of battlefield, in world of little true fear or tension. His eyes saw something different, reminded not of conflict had between faceless nations, but between mere hundreds of beings like what had he once been. Called to arms, not for the sake of honor, but to satiate the hunger that ravaged the mind of any among Hollow, so unfortunate to choose to struggle through the despair of awareness of their twisted fate. For all that his mind could no longer recollect in detail, the occasional view of places like this served to ever freshen those manner of thoughts in him; of the feeling of desperation. Desperate to feed. Desperate to live. Desperate to make sense of a life built on struggling without more goal than survival.
Unlike interference beyond his control, such times were among the moments when were he nothing more than a single self, experiencing the world for what it were. Struggles, wounds, losses, deceptions.. Years upon years of them had perpetuated his shaping of his own sense of self, as imposed they change to a life that by his own whims he would otherwise have spent docile. The need to evolve and change, they were the motives that one could pour meaning into and imagine the future differently as giving into.
He cared little for these things, in truth. All the same, he held no contempt for this weakness in him now, for a short time after awakening, of feeling some connection to these nostalgic memories and a vague sense of emotions felt at that time. To him, they were small pebbles that disrupted the surface of a black lake, perhaps one day to pile together enough that shifts the water onto some possibility of change. As was the nature he imposed on himself, for the sake of avoiding to be subject of emotions, to be that still, dead lake that did not flow like some river, lest risk obstacles placed before him by another corrupting his path to their design.

Several minutes of standing admits the whipping winds passed without change, before seemed said winds to start to topple his body forward over the dune's ledge as leaned his shape forward and struck first then his foot down onto the angled decline. His forceful step sunk barely into the sand before it get pushed away around it like the drop of an anvil, gliding through the sand by the weight of his form and kicking up sand in his wake as slid he down the height of the dune with quick speed. As met his foot the beginning of the desert floor and he continued to walk, whipping a bit of the particles of sand still behind him, falling the way of his back like a grasping hand on it's approach. As fell the sand down to the ground by the right side of his old footsteps, the unconnected grains moved in unison as an arcing shape, the tip bending against the sandy grounds whilst the moon-like shape bent up from behind to curve over the point of contact and then falling down like snow over the silhouette of a shape, which they clung too.
The allocating sand soon darkened from ashen to coal, a crusted imagery of some humanoid form coming up on Draka with longer strides than his own. It's shoulder's started falling apart into dust behind it, trailing it's path briefly before thickened the puffs of solid black grains in it's shadow and then, connected, hanging off of it's feet stepping on self-same shadow and climbing up the length like had the shadow come alive. Coming to it's shoulders, the blackness cast itself over the silhouette's head, it's grounded end whipping free of the ground in the wind and fluttering briefly in the wind before, stretching away from the silhouette, it grew in size and suddenly shot forward to warp itself over front and back of the silhouette to form a heavy black robe that stole aware any sight of the original shape beneath, as became it merely a walking black warp with a hood and long sleeves.

Draka turned his head slightly, til caught his pupil and blazing iris onto the shape by the corner of his eye, never stopping to slowly walk across the desert. Ascelepius. Shadow of Creation, or so it would claim. To him, it's existence was the uncertainty that had laid down certainties of his own life for ages now. The being that had pushed itself identity as the 'Reaper' upon him, like an ironic curse to his long-since one certain victory over it's controlling influence. Like Erebus, an existence that had invaded his body in some point of his history, long before he even had a history that could still be recollected. A parasite of the soul, occupying in ways worse than the likes of Vaizard, whom he'd through experiments of old had learned to merely carry dark reflections of themselves. Ascelepius' very essence was foreign and yet had seeped into him like a disease of the bones of his essence, his motives unfathomable and purposely kept out of Draka's reach, same as the true beginnings of their ancient history, beginning supposedly before his existence as Hollow, and still before even that of existing as a human, it would claim.
A founded claim, though. Draka knew so, well enough. There had once existed something in a time or dimension far to distant to this one to still be remembered, to set these events into motion that had haunted him since the beginning of his days, ensuring his fate. From human to awareness of the spiritual, to survivor of it, to understanding it, to suffering by it and eventually succumb too it, only to be dragged back into a crueler world still, with his short-lived life and imposed 'play' of hardships only barely allowing him to survive the horror of a Hollow's existence.. In the long life to follow, through the gradual learning of the past that followed him beyond time by the hands of the immortal Shadow, he had never allowed himself the hope of controlling it's essence, knowing the hope of that to be the grounds of failing the requirements that allowed him to not be lured into it's nature, and there, be consumed by it.

He slowly blinked, from the corner of his gaze staring upon an empty desert behind him and the last of the whipped up sand grains from moments before coming down like visible droplets of a passing rain. His steps halted only for a moment, scanning over the empty landscape in his wake and the gusts of sand blow across the air by whips of wind. Blinking again, he turned his head and continued to walk, dismissing his nostalgic thoughts to instead project his attention ahead. After all, he was close now to this fresh change on the horizon.. It'd been long ago since he'd pushed her aside, knowing well the results of the disapproval of the Shadow towards her influence on his past self, back when were he much less knowing of the being's designs and engineering for the future. Another pebble in the still lake, but one tending to kick up even after hitting the bottom. It described her nature well in same way, though their time spent both whilst human and later in transverse of Hueco Mundo she'd accounted for much more misshaping of him than would he care to quantify.. Seems this was a time for another splash in the lake, perhaps even to lead to the lake finding some temporary outlet for it's waters to explore.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a single wanderer upon the sands he approached, his gaze was held forward, for lack of focus upon anything in specific. At this distance, the lowly energies of her exerted abilities somewhat obscured her own presence with it's ambient blanketed of the area that had her power toyed with. It surprised him a little that she of all individuals would have the discipline to maintained the lesson, regarding the advantage to suppress one's spiritual power beyond the norm of others. Draka's tendency was born of the nature of his abilities, earning his respect for such by experience and setting him apart in how rarely he exerted his power, actively or passively, by comparison to his once fellow Arrancar. What was an annoyance to them, holding their energy from seeping out to degrees as nature seemed to dictate, was a necessity by now to him.. A certain memory of trying to explain as much to her in the past, further made him question what might have altered her values since those times to now.
Perhaps, he might yet be inspired by surprises to come..

[Res]

Closer and closer yet the approaching presence fell upon the sands and leaked into the sorrounding air, manifesting itself and keeping hold upon her thoughts. For a moment, her thoughts seemed similar to those which she had when they were still walking within the realm of humans. Calm, collected, empty of worries and paranoia, far off from the typical thought patterns that she had been plagued by all these years. On the one hand, she wasn't suprised that this encounter would envoke these types of reactions, in fact she should've been prepared for such. However, it was almost comical that after all these years living within this realm, that she would be so easily thrown back to a different time. Almost as if everything that had transpired within this timeline was nothing more than watching a TV series, starring herself and that at one point she would grab the remote and simply switch off the TV and return to a normal life. As if nothing had any deeper meaning and it was all a curtain that could simply be pulled aside at one point for reality to hit her.
Then again, these types of thoughts shouldn't come to a surprise anymore, as the past experiences and the life which she has come to know here did force oneself to grow numb to the events, thoughts and feelings that they would experience. Everything seemed as if it was happening through a window, watching yet never really being affected by it, when in reality it was a game of life and death the entire time. Then again, come to think of it, Minako had attempted to fill this life with creation and purpose, turning her back on fighting and instead coming to more reasonable goals with individuals. And while she had not been able to turn her back on all fights, she could still say that the largest wars were not fought with her blade. There had also been other experiences here in Hueco Mundo or rather Las Noches that were far off from the typical mundane and sorrow-filled life that they were given. Experiences that one could almost describe as joyous, happy, well, maybe taking ones mind off of things would be another way to describe them. After all, you couldn't spend your time constantly fighting, what would that lead to?
Yet these moments and memories seemed all so far off, these events happened so long ago, the people she met throughout her journey had all but vanished. She did wish that they may have found peace or were still roaming the sands unhurt, for some she had almost thought impossible for them to get hurt, with their strength even back then being enormous. Yet, as Hueco Mundo will teach you the hard way, there's always a bigger fish in the sea. Though the danger here most likely came from some other force, may it be Shinigami, Bount, Quincy, Human or whatever else the world had to offer. All of them fighting a constant war, which even back then seemed redundant. Many years back Minako had tried putting a stop to this war, trying to explain how Arrancar weren't exactly keen on trying to fight the Shinigami, but rather cared for survival of this realm. Yet her words were in vain, nothing could stop the almost bloodthirsty appetite for Hollow slaying that the Shinigami had made into a sport. Yet even her attempts seemed so long ago and so far away that she had almost forgotten to care about them. Truthfully, the whole Hollow hunting spree had stopped affecting her so much and she had almost forgotten what it was like to be a normal Hollow that she had not continued to pursue her attempts of making the hunt stop. One could say that she had fallen pray to the same mutual feelings as every other Arrancar, simply not caring for anothers well being.

"Breathe..." Minako spoke out as she returned to the reality of the situation. Her cloth covered head tilting back in a 45 degree angle, pushing the cloth lightly against the pale skin of face underneath. Her nostrils audibly inhaled some of the empty air sorrounding her, filling her lungs to the brim and expanding her ribcage in the process. "One.....Two.....Three.....Four.....Five" She counted within her head, before exhaling the air against the cloth covering her mouth, which in turn released it back into the air around her.
It was a decent way of clearing her head, to calm down and regain focus, which she was prone to lose at times. Now wasn't the time to lose her focus however, that would be for another time and another place.
She did however wonder what their imminent meeting would be like. How much would he have changed mentally...physically perhaps? What things had he discovered and found out about? Had there been many hardships or had he pursued his own goals and achieved a goal? Many questions left unanswered but soon was the time to get at least a little peek into what she had left behind. The thought was almost scary for some reason. it wasn't exactly like a get togehter with someone from the human realm, where not too many major things change over time and most things are within a certain scale. Here, however, things could end up being completely different very quickly and on a much larger scale...it certainly left for a lot of surprises, that was for sure. Nonetheless, considering the path that they had taken, it would still seem odd for him to have fallen completely away from everything, even with that spirit haunting his soul. But she would have to see and find out for herself soon enough, if any major changes had occured, how much he had grown or fallen.

Finally, the time of waiting seemed to slowly but surely come to an end. She could feel his presence approaching ever closer and he at this point was not far now, that was for sure. While she had thought of many a way to engage their first contact, Minako decided to cast all of her ideas aside and instead let them meet the way it should be. No tricks, no illusions, no music or any other distraction. Simply the two of them on this energy filled platform that screamed of a past battle that the two knew all too well. Here was there first proving grounds and here is where they would meet again, just the way it should be.
And with one nod of her clothed head, Minako shifted her weight from her heels onto her toes, taking one small step to the side in order to turn her body around 180 degrees, so that her back was no longer facing his direction, but instead so that she could face him head on. Her bright yellow eyes glimmered and shined between the small slit in the fabric which covered her head. Her feet were firmly planted on the ground beneath her in a confident stance, while her arms were tucked away into the white robe. Now she was ready to face him.

 

 

 

[Draka]

The view before him was already lost in it's own sheer size and expanse, ever so close now to another ripple in the stale waters of the time that surrounded him. Similar to how himself was alike a speck of dust on surface of the desert, too broad for the difference between himself and a newly masked Hollow to be noticed in the broader view of things.. He allowed the thought, though knowing well the conclusion towards which such philosophies ended up, that tried to derive sense from a line of thinking that generalized existence from grains in an hourglass symbolizing coming end, to dust in the wind symbolizing nothing. It is the failing of a mind like his own, berated by events experienced along the length of time to have flowed past him to see his fate has tied into a godly clockwork, to negate significance of the subtle changes though he himself was another such subtle detail in the scale of which such scheming expanded across. A controversial thing, to try and be more clever than can one effectively benefit for, other than to be inspired by it, in the process of neglecting the chance to be inspired by the subtle, as was generalized by such thinking. The irony of course then being the ensuing paradox of trying to judge the usefulness of something incomprehensible by measure of leaning to one definite, one extreme or another, that then invites one inevitable choice. The choice on how to balance ones philosophy under the twins of 'faith' and 'reality', to see the world as it 'might be' or to reject for what by the greatest measure of certainty 'is'.

His lips parted to sigh and started to close as he sucked a new breath to him, his eyes slightly closing while he raised a hand towards his eyes. Grasping his face by cheek and forehead, he softly rubbed the pale skin of his features while his mind came to bathe in some momentary silence. It was always the small things who's effect surprised him, like his unbalanced mind following from being woken or it's allowance of him to get lost in things like the sensation of touch and smell of Hueco Mundo's bitter desert winds. Stale cold and a vague scent of blood, reminding him of words of an old Hollow that he recalled as liking to ponder on the way of the world as conclusions of things that'd come together meaningfully, purposely..

Endless as was it old, where each new to risen would begin it's walk, as comes heart's end and soul's beat. Endless as was it old, for each to walk it would eventually end in it the same. Endless as was it old, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
For this desert be neither sand nor rock, but degraded flesh and blood. The white sickness of the sand neither moonlight nor age, but phoenix's ash from every Hollow old, in it born each one new to begin upon it's walk.
Endless as was it old, for no memory remained, to remind us when was this land without it's sand

He found himself whispering the poetic lines as though read from a piece of paper, contemplating momentarily on the possibility suggested. Of course, it didn't really matter, whether it be the chicken or the egg that begat what all had come to take for granted as always having been. Then again, there was that timeless thing that haunted his soul, like a shadow ever hanging onto him, to whom such a thing that maybe just might carry some meaningful difference. Indeed there was some resonance between the philosophy and the shadow, both viewing things by notions of inevitability that burdened any and all to play out one of a few small roles in larger conclusions, blindly and with ignorant bliss. A dictation that itself it seemed to view as being it's purpose and role, that is, to unbalance the flow of the world as an outsider and rule breaker.
He accepted this, if only to build a reference from which to, to some degree, understand the shadow's pattern of behavior, as interfered it with the supposed fate that did it view to wrap Draka in golden chains, guiding him on a trial that did it despise to see fulfilled.. His mind lingered on the thought and it's wording for a moment, glimpsing the involuntary shift of tone. "if only", he'd worded it in his mind, as though to express resentment. These moments did somewhat satisfy him, the rare allowance to draw inspiration from the base of emotions he felt only outside his awoken state. That said, the reasoning for this was all the clearer, as giving the thought any serious after thought. Could he rightfully call his fate worse than other Hollow, he who's agelessness mirrored the unchanging nature of himself or rather, the unwillingness to invite change, so much more than the average denizen of Hueco Mundo. An unending torture, but done on a heart of ash, not even the mask formed of a Hollow's lost heart whom carry their human darkness that survives the madness of attempting to accept what the beasts have become. Their afterlife stolen and put to the use of defying others still of the same thing, if not their time among the living as well with it. What madness could they go on and ascend to, if to live long enough to realize how unsatisfying their struggles will be to the evolved selves that their struggles push them to become.. What a vicious circle.. One might say.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another few steps and from over the ledge to the pit the wind was whipping his black coat forward into view, the black fabric flapping wildly while his frame gradually joined it there on the edge of the descent, in plain view of what stood waiting on him in it's depths. A Hollow too kind, in a pit where does their kin give in to the brutality that are they innately born with. Once a human too kind, recklessly throwing away what other of their kin had usually had stolen from them, just before becoming such. Once, one who wanted to be the sun, because Hueco Mundo was too boring with only ever unchanging night, in her mind. "Everyone should be allow to enjoy the sight of the break of dawn and coming of twilight" he was sure she'd once said, if only a very long time ago. Ever the exception to any rule, though never seeking to break them. Rather she simply saw them as she had her life of old, as tools who's reality she might reject and substitute for her own, if were there merely a reason vague enough and time unspent. In this regard, she was opposite to the shadow, whom looked upon the world as though chained to the feet of some heavenly throne. She had never seemed to give the notion of fate a second thought, least none such thought she felt worthwhile to linger on over what was happening right in front of her. Somehow, the world was not some chessboard of bloody conflicts, but a sand box for one to shape one's own corner of as to best please one's senses. And indeed, with eternity to live for, the comforts of the senses was about all the motivation most souls had to gravitate to, albeit most finding a bittersweet taste there as their lust for destruction brought discomfort upon them.. He wondered if time had yet shaken her core and stolen that which made her so uncommon among Hueco Mundo's denizens.

He'd stood there for a few seconds already, peering down upon the small figure standing within the center of the pit, preserved by the stagnant nature of Hueco Mundo that left the landscape unaltered, say by the hand of one dweller of the desert crossing with another. Of course, he didn't see the desert as likely to be shaken by this particular crossing, though the uncertainty was worth a small bit of gratitude, for as long as it would last.
As his foot slid forward over the ledge, sand gently waved forward through the air as a small sea spray. Just like a spray and how it's wave form is lost in the clash against beach rocks, blurred Draka's form as the air distorted around his Sonído step. The step flung him forward through the air until the tip of his foot set down on the sand a few meters in front of where Minako was facing, the cloth on him that had the winds kicked upwards, now gently falling back to until they once more hung from his figure like a heavy set of robes. As set his other foot down, he continue forward with a slow walk while his gaze absorbed the view of the familiar Arrancar standing before him, like the golden eyes that contrasted the azure blaze within his, upon the ebon background that was his sclera.
"Oscuras.. Of all the things to change about you, learning such a bothersome technique is somehow uncharacteristic" he commented from the slight distance still between them, that he was still decreasing in his slowly approach. "Even in the great expanse of time, which touches neither one of us, other than what we do to ourselves." His tone was soft with a certain idle curiosity, amidst the otherwise monotone delivery that betrayed his connection with Minako who stood before him. Even still waking to his old self, that was something engraved upon him more than could he care to try and remember back, except to begin even before the time of his death.